Point Based Dating

Making Things Easier

    It didn't take long for Bakugou to realize that the way they were going about this none of them were getting anywhere fast. Any points they make they lose just as quickly. They were almost done with the first week and no one has even reached thirty points, and they start with fifteen. No one has gotten fifteen more points in one week. He's sure that if he was able to actually watch the ones not in his face all the time that they would have but he can't because he has the ones who seem to think constantly annoying him is the way to go.

    So Thursday evening he locked himself in his room and started brainstorming ideas to help make this run smoother and end quicker. He didn't want to spend over eight years trying to just figure out who to actually date just because some idiots convinced him to in a game of truth or dare.

    Three hours and an overflowing trash can full of crumpled up paper later he heard a knock on his door. He almost just yelled at the person to go away but then he thought better of it. He sat his notepad and pen down on the bed and got up to answer it. He stoped for a second to turn on his lamp first when he realized how dark his room was getting.

    When the door opened he saw the only friend he had that he could hang out with without it making him seem biased in the competition, Aoyama Yuga. Not only that but he came bearing gifts.

    "Figured you may be a little hungry." The sparkly boy said, holding up the plate of shrimp gimbap he had. 

    Bakugou stood aside, inviting him into the room. The taller blond entered and took a second to look around. He saw the paper everywhere and the notepad on the bed. It was clear to him that Bakugou had something he was steuggling to get out of his head.

    "Do you need someone to bounce ideas off of?" Aoyama offered.

    "No. Yes? Maybe. I don't know." Bakugou fell backwards onto his bed and covered his eyes with one of his arms.

    "Ok. How about you just start by telling me what you're trying to figure out?" Aoyama picked up the notepad and pen after sitting the food on the desk.

    "A way to make this stupid competition run more smoothly. Just making it a bloody free for all is definitely not working. Just look at the scores if you don't believe me."

    Aoyama did believe him but still turned in the desk chair to grab one of the folders that held his dear classmate's scores. He saw that the number went up or down by two or three points a day.

    "Whatever points they gain they lose around just as many, leaving only a slight difference. Either that or I just can't keep an eye on them. I need more of a controlled environment where I only have one to three of them that I need to keep an eye on, but that is near impossible with the other fourteen to twelve running around." Bakugou grumbled. "Plus I don't really know much about boyfriends or girlfriends. Life isn't just a fucking romance novel. How it works here is different than a small town in North Carolina with a shopkeeper and a mechanic."

    Aoyama nodded, writing down the basics as if he was currently Bakugou's therapist. This was clearly stressing him out. He doesn't usually talk about his collection of romance books like this. The only other time Aoyama has heard him do so was when they were arguing one morning over some movie and Bakugou was arguing about how one of his books portrayed the same situation with much more emotion.

    "So what I'm getting is that you're a failure in the romance department and the rest of the class are failures in the you department." Aoyama said once Bakugou finished a long complaining sess about how it would be so much easier if this were a book and not real life.

    "You didn't have to put it like that, but yeah."

    "Bakugou, real life isn't that different from your books. After all, authors tend to pull from their own personal experiences so they can capture the raw emotion within each of the scenes. However, authors only have so many pages to work with. Behind the scenes the characters go through so much that we don't get to wittness because their story can't be twenty thousand pages long. So what may take us only a few days to read could have, and most likely did, take up several months, or years, of their life. Romance and love isn't something that just happens instantaneousl, and that's in a somewhat normal situation. This is anything but normal, and I'm pretty sure nearly every single person involved is pulling from what little knowledge they have from romance movies or their own fleeting experiences."

    "Get to the point Twinkle Toes." Bakugou was not appreciating getting a lecture.

    "All of us are inexperienced in the romance and dating field. We're just kids. All any of us have to go on is movies, books, and failed relationships that ended because one of the parties decided that someone else would be better. Knowing you, what you are trying to pull from this contest is someone who is going to stay for a long time while also gathering enough experience to make it work for the long run. So Bakugou, I need you to clear your head for a minute and forget about the idiots outside of this room."

    Bakugou rolled his eyes but sat up and listened. He forgot about the others and cleared his head, hoping that whatever Aoyama was getting at would work.

    "Tell me, what are the main things in romance novels that make the couple's relationship fall apart?" Why are they talking about things failing? He's trying to make this work.

    "I don't know. Disloyalty, miscommunication, pressure from outside parties, and a few times I've read where it was actually the characters past traumatic experiences that made them feel like they weren't worthy of feeling loved."

    "Ooh lend me those. That sounds interesting. What I was trying to get at though is the miscommunication and also them not really bothering to get to know each other, which eventually leads to miscommunication. Part of any relationship is getting to know your partner.

    Due to us being classmates, and having spent the past year just finding out random things by living together, they probably haven't even thought of that, and you obviously haven't. Also with the way you have this set up they can't really take you on a date with these very few point, and the first date is typically where most couples take the time to get to know each other."

    "So basically you're saying I need to come up with not just something to make this easier, won't interfere eith the rules, and is also something that will make it to where we can learn about each other?" Bakugou asked.

    "Precisely."

    Bakugou went silent. He was trying to think of a way he can do that. Aoyama reminded him to keep a clear mind while thinking. Suddenly it hit him. He grabbed the notepad from Aoyama, found himself a clean page, and started writing down his thoughts. How did he not think of this to begin with?

    After getting the idea down he showed it to Aoyama. The twinkling blond smile and offered gimbap as a reward, which Bakugou gladly accepted. All he needed now was to get permission from the teachers and then tell his contestants.